That is a little reminiscent of the situation in Canada. The "Liberal Party" in Quebec or British Columbia provincial elections isn't the same as the Liberal Party in national elections. While the Liberal Party faced off against Conservatives in the national elections, in BC its chief opponent in provincial elections was the New Democrats and in Quebec it was the Parti Quebecois, both parties further to the left.

In effect the provincial Liberal Party was the conservative party in local politics, and Jean Charest, a Conservative Party leader in national politics, like didn't have much choice but to become a Liberal when he wanted to run for Premier of Quebec.

FWIW, Charest also had birth certificate troubles, as his legal birth name was "John" rather than "Jean."

If Puerto Rico were to become a state the anomalies would iron out and it would become a pretty solidly Democrat state.

Well, one problem in Quebec is that there’s no Conservative Party, one reason Charest had no choice but to switch parties in order to assume a leadership position at the provincial level. The Canadian provincial vs. federal system is a bit byzantine, anyhow.

PR is really the only locale in the U.S. that doesn’t have officeholders formally aligned with the “D” or “R” parties on the ballot, though most will declare their preferences for which mainland party Presidential candidates they’d support (although Nebraska’s unicameral legislature is probably another — all win on a “non partisan” ticket, though most folks can discern which pols tend to be aligned with one party or another).

Even if race or language became a non-issue there, the fact that admitting a state with an incredibly low per capita income is just a plain bad idea. Welfare would become (if it already isn’t) the preeminent issue. PR would become the poorest state in the nation, making Mississippi look rich by comparison.

But even getting back to language, though it isn’t equal to Quebec in Canada, PQ should be a warning when you have a “distinct culture” separate and apart from the majority. It may be cute and quaint, but it causes too many problems. Instead of buckling to the Francophones, back in the 19th century, Ottawa should’ve set a timetable to anglicize Quebec. In failing to do so, Canada as a whole was weakened, because they bend over backwards to accommodate and patronize an ethnic minority at the expense of the majority, while the ethnic minority is not expected to show similar courtesy to the ethnic majority (prime example is how the English-speaking provinces must accommodate Francophones... but as soon as you’re in Quebec, you might as well be in France, because not even road signs are in English).

If the USA had allowed such measures with its individual states, we’d have had a nightmare scenario. Imagine a French Louisiana, Rhode Island & Maine, Gaelic Massachusetts, Swedish Delaware, Dutch New York, German Pennsylvania, Spanish Florida & Texas, Russian Alaska, et al.

Although I have respect for our fellow FReepers who favor admittance and would personally be happy to assimilate and become a part of the mainland GOP as Conservatives, personally, I think either status quo or independence is the way to go. Let Puerto Ricans be in charge of their own destiny and not yield to the morass and statism of DC. Same goes for my opinion of Hawaii. They should be cut loose as well, as they’ve demonstrated with their elected officials to be quite supportive of ultra-radical leftist politics and help to maintain the disastrous status quo in DC via their 2 execrable Senators.

Canadian politics is very interesting to me, I got really into it out of boredom a few years ago.

Nowadays I would say CAQ (and before it the ADQ) is the most conservative choice in Quebec. I wonder why the Liberals and CAQ didn’t form a coalition to keep the new PQ minority government out.

In BC Before the BC Liberals (which had been all but dead) took over the role the main center/right party in the province was the Social Credit party, which was originally formed to promote a weird lefty idea called, social credit.

In BC cause the new (not so new now) leader of the Liberal party is a federal liberal and a witch the old BC Conservative party that had been long been all but dead made a resurgence.

They’re numbers have dipped but in the latest poll they’re still taking 11% to the Liberals 33% and the NDP’s 43%.